18 December 2025
This year’s eagle nesting season is long over in Pittsburgh but the 2026 season is already warming up. Folks are looking forward to watching the Glen Hazel bald eagles and hoping for good views of the nest.
Last week Dana Nesiti took a look back at the (formerly Hays) bald eagles’ first year at their new nest site in Glen Hazel.
For the back story on this nest site, see this 30 April post:
19 November 2025
Now that most of the trees are bare(*) we can see nests that were hidden by summer leaves. Among them are those built by hornets, birds, and squirrels.
Papery hornet nests dangle like hanging raindrops or upside-down cones from a sturdy branch.
Newly revealed bird nests come in all sizes, from the small hanging nests of red-eyed vireos that dangle from the fork of a small branch …
… to the large nests of American crows built high in the trees.
Squirrel nests — actually called dreys — look like misshapen leaf balls with a few twigs poking out.
A drey is the nest of a tree squirrel, flying squirrel or ringtail possum (in Australia). Dreys are usually built of twigs, dry leaves, and grass, and typically assembled in the forks of a tall tree. They are sometimes referred to as “drey nests” to distinguish them from squirrel “cavity nests” (also termed “dens”).
— Wikipedia: Drey
Squirrels use dreys as nests in spring-summer and shelters in the winter. Before the leaves fall they are busy biting off leafy branches and carrying them up to the winter drey. It takes a lot of effort to keep their shelter warm and waterproof. Brrrr!
In the top photo there are three dreys in three trees and one in the fork of a tree in Schenley Park, below.
How can we tell whether it’s a squirrel’s drey or a large bird nest?
Large bird nests, such as the crow nest below, are built of sticks. Squirrels use leaves, especially on the outside.
(*) Most of the trees are bare: For many years I’ve kept track of leaf-off in Schenley Park. Sometimes it’s early, sometimes it’s late. This year most of the trees were bare on or before Friday 14 November 2025. Here’s what the park looked like on that date.
9 November 2025
Peregrine falcons occur on every continent including Australia and always breed in the spring. In Pittsburgh their time at the nest runs late February to early June. In Australia it runs late August to early November.
The peregrines that nest at 367 Collins in Melbourne, Australia have been putting on such a show this year that they made BBC News yesterday: ‘Nestflix’: Peregrine falcon livestream has Australians glued to their screens.
On 3 November Lady Hawk on YouTube captured their antics at about 30 days old while they had mottled down and new feathers.
Her video combines the 367 Collins Falcons 2025 – North Facing Stream (the nestbox) and the 367 Collins Falcons 2025 – South Facing Stream (the runway).
You might see them when you watch in the morning in the U.S. when it is night in Australia and the peregrines are roosting. By afternoon the peregrines will be waking up, and since they will fledge soon you might not see them.
At top, an adult perches atop the nestbox, visible on the North Facing Stream on Sunday night 9 November at 10:34pm (6:34am Pittsburgh).
Below, two juvies roost at the runway in sight of the South Facing Stream on Sunday night at 10:50pm.
At this stage young peregrines grow up fast. They will fledge at 38-45 days (my guess is 11-18 November) so watch them soon at 367 Collins Falcons 2025 – North Facing Stream (the nestbox) and 367 Collins Falcons 2025 – South Facing Stream (the runway).
For video of nesting raptors around the world and more Melbourne peregrine videos visit Lady Hawk on YouTube.
16 September 2025
White terns (Gygis alba) lay a single egg on a bare branch and feed their chick by plucking fish from the ocean and returning to nest.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife captured video of white terns feeding their chicks at Midway Atoll.
18 August 2025
This news from 2018 is worth repeating.
Back in May 2025 NOAA predicted a strong hurricane season this year so it was a little surprising how quiet the ocean was this summer … until now. Last Friday Tropical Storm Erin was upgraded to a hurricane and quickly grew to Categories 4 and 5. Is this the start of the strong season we expected? Veerys could tell us the answer if we knew this spring’s nesting status and whether they’ve already left on migration.
Veerys (Catharus fuscescens) breed in cool climates in North America and spend the winter in Brazil. Banding and tracking studies found that southbound veerys never travel overland through Mexico. Instead they always cross the Caribbean to get to the Yucatan, Central and South America. Even northwestern breeders begin by traveling east to later fly across the Gulf. (Their path is actually a great circle route.)
I’ve marked up the veery range map to show some of their southbound routes across the Gulf.
Veerys have been studied in Delaware since 1998. In 2017 with decades of data on nesting outcomes and fall departure times, ornithologist Christopher Heckscher discovered an amazing correlation. In bad hurricane years, Delaware’s veerys abbreviate the breeding season and leave in midsummer on migration. This timing happens to get them safely across the Caribbean before the hurricanes hit.
By midsummer 2017, Heckscher knew the veerys had shortened their breeding season so he boldly predicted a bad hurricane season even though meteorologists had already said otherwise. When the season was over it was true. The veerys were right. Heckscher published a paper on this in Scientific Reports in 2018.
Heckscher has a theory on why veeries know this:
Heckscher hypothesizes that, on their wintering grounds, they may notice precipitation patterns linked to the El Niño and La Niña cycles that influence hurricane activity. “Whatever it is, they know by mid-May,” he says, explaining that the average date of all nesting attempts in years with low ACE(*) was after May 23.
— Audubon Magazine: August 2019: Are These Birds Better Than Computers at Predicting Hurricane Seasons?
So have the veerys abbreviated their nesting season this year and already left for Brazil? I’d really like to know.
For more information, see this August 2019 Audubon Magazine article and Heckscher’s paper A Nearctic-Neotropical Migratory Songbird’s Nesting Phenology and Clutch Size are Predictors of Accumulated Cyclone Energy.
(*) ACE is Accumulated Cyclone Energy, a numeric measure of hurricane season intensity. A low number means it will be a low-activity hurricane season; high is bad.
27 June 2025
We have little owls in North American but not The Little Owl, Athene noctua, native to parts of Eurasia and North Africa and introduced to Britain and New Zealand.
Watch a little owl hunt for a worm for its chicks in this video by Robert E Fuller. You can tell how small the owl is when it picks up the earthworm in its beak!
30 June 2025
This spring my mother’s next door neighbor discovered a mallard nesting in her front yard under the shrubs that line her home’s foundation. It seemed like an unsafe place but Mrs. Mallard had her reasons.
Nesting mallards must be alert for a wide variety of predators including raptors, snakes, weasels, red foxes and raccoons. You would think they’d also avoid humans but our constant presence keeps many of those predators away. That was the calculation Mrs. Mallard made and she was right.
One day a black rate snake approached the nest but the neighbors went on high alert and saved the day. Caroline, who took these photos, drove away the snake with a technique so successful that the snake never came back.
One day after they hatched, Mrs. Mallard led her “kids” down the street to the nearest water. Her protectors wished them all a fond farewell.
15 June 2025
Wood-warblers, belonging to the large family Parulidae, are beautiful, dainty birds unique to the Americas. The family has 115 species spread between North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean—56 species can be found in the United States and Canada.
— Laura Erickson’s For The Birds
Of those 56 species only two nest in cavities: the prothonotary warbler in eastern North America and Lucy’s warbler in the West.
The prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) is arguably the most gorgeous of all the wood-warblers with a glowing yellow head and chest and gray wings and tail. As a woodland swamp specialist, he prefers to breed where old trees stand in water and woody shrubs overhang it. A great example of his habitat can be found at Conneaut Marsh–McMichael/Brown Hill Rd in Crawford County, PA.
The prothonotary male arrives in the spring ahead of the females and chooses several potential nest sites. He sings from the opening to claim his territory and attract a mate.
He also places moss inside before the females arrive. His lady adds more after she’s chosen one of his sites.
These two are choosing a nest box.
When the babies hatch both parents feed the young. If undisturbed, the nestlings fledge at 10 days old.
Visit woody swamps in June to find him. Don’t delay; this warbler fledges soon.
p.s. According to Wikipedia, the Francis Beidler Forest in South Carolina has the densest known population of prothonotary warblers and is currently home to more than 2,000 pairs. A good place to look if you’re nearby.
12 June 2025
When Charity Kheshgi and I visited Frick Park last weekend to see the barred owl fledglings we thought we saw three youngsters at the same time but we doubted ourselves. Barred owls (Strix varia) usually have only one or two youngsters per year. Yesterday we went back to see them again and saw FIVE youngsters, an unusually high number.
Charity arrived at the Hutchinson entrance ahead of me and saw five fledglings. By the time I arrived one had flown off but at the end of our stay the mother owl came in with prey and all five crowded round for a bite to eat. It was only a chipmunk, not a full meal for a family of five, so as soon as it was gone she left to find more.
Enjoy Charity’s photos and videos of the owl family. Eventually they attracted a crowd of humans.
Five barred owl fledglings at Frick Park + mother, 11 June 2025 (photos by Charity Kheshgi)
The family is hanging out near the Hutchinson entrance. Your best bet for finding them is to listen for upset songbirds.
10 June 2025
Great horned owls stole the show in Schenley Park from March into April. Now Frick’s own barred owl family has two fledglings branching and flying this month.
UPDATE as of 11 June: There are FIVE fledglings!
Barred owls (Strix varia) have lived in Frick Park for about five years and though they missed nesting last year they have two five fledglings this spring. On 7 June Charity Kheshgi and I met at the Hutchinson entrance to go find them.
The first clue for me were the sounds of upset robins and blue jays which we followed to the general area. Once there Charity and my Merlin app could hear the call of a barred owl juvenile. We waited for it to make a move.
Eventually one, then two, fledglings awkwardly flapped and branched from tree to tree.
The youngster with the dark face perched where we could see it between the leaves.
Charity captured video of the youngster calling. Can you hear it? Because of upper-range hearing loss I cannot hear any of it but I can see the bird open its beak to make the call.
If you go looking for these owls, listen for upset songbirds to “tell” you where the birds are hanging out. You’ll have a big advantage finding them if you can hear their high-pitched calls!
p.s. On 7 June Charity and I saw three owls at once but the third was very obscured by leaves. We thought it was a 3rd fledgling but was it an adult? A short time later we saw an adult and only two fledglings. Michelle Kienholz has watched this family for months and confirms there are only two youngsters.
